tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96285422016-11-05T07:39:40.951-05:00The Life of BooksThis blog is dedicated to exploring the idea that "books are dead".
(Yeah, right.)Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-64995593325210590002013-01-29T10:36:00.000-06:002013-01-29T14:44:15.248-06:00Misunderstood? West Publishing as Content ProviderI read with interest this morning, Simon Chester's interesting post on SLAW about Thomson Reuters' Bold Leap to become a software company. It's an interesting piece that gives additional perspective on the announcements TR made at the recent blogger event in St Paul and blogged about by many worthy commentators, such as +Jean O'Grady, +Jason Wilson and +Greg Lambert, to name a few.
The Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-59704687718932741622013-01-22T12:14:00.003-06:002013-01-29T09:02:38.113-06:00The Future of Primary LawWest's (OK, Thomson Reuters, technically, but it will always be West to me) announcement that they are shifting focus on becoming a legal software/services company rather than a being primarily a content "creator," should send a chill throughout the law community.
+Jason Wilson's excellent blog post summarizing the goings on the TR blogger's summit got me thinking about the consequences if Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-52917166007816427582011-10-14T08:39:00.004-05:002011-10-14T10:22:53.345-05:00Challenges of Mining Case Citations from Law Review ArticlesThe previous post was written two weeks ago. And I've been working primarily with Paul Deschner of the HLSL Innovation Lab to design an algorithm that can mine cases from a full text law review database. There are some interesting challenges in doing this. We've been able to acquire test files with which to perform test searches and here are some of the interesting challenges that we've come up Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-86164122871730502272011-10-14T08:23:00.005-05:002013-08-14T18:17:41.576-05:00A New Mode of Full-text Case Retrieval - a work in progress[This past academic year, John Palfrey, Professor of Law, Vice Dean, Library and Information Resources, Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center For Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, was intrigued by an idea that I’ve been kicking around for several years and invited me to come to Harvard to work on it.
With the support of an incredibly talented staff in my home library, I felt comfortableRichard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-39218145650953505002011-01-14T15:33:00.002-06:002011-01-14T15:34:58.189-06:00Waiting for the Other Shoe to DropI'm baffled by publishers' arrogance these days. Two recent events made me whack my head with the palm of my hand…. Law Journal Seminars Press is now rolling out a "fantastic" new program for their books. Instead of merely paying for the looseleaf supplements for their books (for the most part reasonably priced, by the way), we can now either opt to receive them in print and online, or online Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-39041693339803265182011-01-04T12:23:00.002-06:002011-01-04T12:27:55.758-06:00Where are the Catalogers? Proposed Amendment to the Durham StatementReflecting on the character of the Durham Statement As the scholarship becomes more widely available in digital formats, it is critical that we seek input from catalogers and technical services librarians on how to make these digital resources as useful and usable as possible. I've been thinking about the meaning to legal researchers and legal bibliographers of the Durham Statement. It has Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-4389498188240386402010-12-14T14:12:00.002-06:002010-12-14T14:18:56.931-06:00A New Form of Cheeseburger: Modern Technology & the Development of the Next Generation of Secondary Materials[With due thanks to Jason Wilson's brilliant post, "Secondary Materials are Like Cheeseburgers," I propose below, a concept of how law librarians, law review editors, scholars and bloggers can cooperate and build a better (well, new!) cheeseburger. These are random thoughts. I welcome feedback. RL]The recipe: Take Web 2.0 + Digital Commons + Durham Statement; Combine them, process until well-doneRichard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-31626114260086010362010-12-08T09:20:00.005-06:002010-12-08T09:44:33.953-06:00Reflections on the End of the World Wide Web and the Future of the Internet as an Information/Service Resource[This post is in an essay written in preparation for the December 10, 2010, Episode 16 of "Law Librarian Conversations," a podcast about all things law library.... This week's podcast with guests Tom Boone, Reference Librarian, Loyola Law School; Jason Wilson, Vice President Jones McClure Publishing; Ed Walters, CEO, Fastcase.If you are reading this before Friday, 12/10, you can join us by Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-66365427545743760222010-10-06T16:03:00.005-05:002010-10-06T17:03:26.750-05:00Two Observations About the State of Modern Law Book PublishingFirst, things cost too much and the prices keep increasing at rates that are out-stripping inflation and funding for libraries. It's almost as though publishers don't want law libraries to buy law books any more. Second, while the quality of online services, and, indeed, even print resources get better and better, there is still an indication that publishers aren't developing their materials for Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-89302597195469957452010-07-06T10:17:00.002-05:002010-07-06T10:30:06.879-05:00Time for Change at AALL?In reading all the late controversy about AALL's programming issues, it seems to me that the obvious cause of the complaints can be traced to the peculiar nature of the membership structure of the association itself. Several years ago, I proposed in Spectrum a fundamental change in the way AALL was structured. It required all members to select a section when they joined the association or as partRichard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-43973546432558348402010-04-21T19:57:00.005-05:002010-04-23T12:23:10.263-05:00Hitting the Wall, Technologically SpeakingNote, this is a draft of a column to be published in Legal Information Alert. RL]Well, ok. It happened. I hit the technology wall.It didn’t hurt or anything, but it was kind of stunning, and it made me laugh. In the back of my mind, however, there’s now an ache, a melancholy low-keyed, distant panic is now resting there. Waiting. You’re gonna hit it, too. So be prepared.Here’s the thing. Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-87676020150951657002010-03-07T15:49:00.003-06:002010-03-07T15:55:44.826-06:00Open Access PlusThe Fourth Rail of the Digital Revolution in Legal MaterialsMuch good work is being done to insure that as the internet develops and digital information becomes the norm, it remains freely accessible to all citizens. After all, how can citizens participate in their government if they can't have access to their own laws? Efforts by AALL, PublicResource.org and NCCUSL and others are focused Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-41666510204443636392010-02-16T11:21:00.003-06:002010-02-16T13:47:09.240-06:00Some Issues Answered: West Explains and Raises questions....3 Geeks and a Law Blog: WestlawNext - Some Issues Answered published an email that Anne Ellis, Senior Director, Librarian Relations, at West, distributed to many AALL listservs this week. Just beneath the surface of all the hub-bub surrounding the roll-out of WestlawNext (WLN), is an unanswered question regarding the structure and nature of the new search engine. West doesn't seem to be very Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-23185485489507468832010-02-09T14:43:00.002-06:002010-02-09T14:56:48.974-06:00The 21st Century Law Library Conundrum: Free Law and Paying to Understand ItFor years people have been predicting the death of books and the general demise libraries. The people who have been most passionate about them are those who stand to gain financially by their own predictions. And that’s not to say that we haven’t all benefited from digital developments in the world of legal bibliography. But in this past decade has seen some extraordinary technological Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-67329513759530095322010-02-06T16:55:00.003-06:002010-02-06T17:10:09.236-06:00Why I'm Signing the Durham Statement[I wrote this the day after hosting a podcast with Professors Richard Danner and John Palfrey, authors and architects of the Durham Statement. The podcast can be found on iTunes, here. The transcript of the chat room can be found here. RL][In a curious irony, when I logged onto the website to "sign" the statement, I got a 404 error.... Uh, I guess the gods do have a sense of humor! RL]OK, I'm Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-43960150881044435872009-12-21T13:31:00.003-06:002009-12-21T13:39:36.165-06:00The Year In Law LibrariesThe panel had some good comments on the year's biggest developments. And predictions.... the predictions are available in the chat room transcript, which you can find by clicking here. I'll post more information about the show later.Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-53420328290331415682009-12-09T15:41:00.003-06:002009-12-09T15:45:14.832-06:00Reflections on Conversation with Anurag Acharya, Google ScholarReaction to Google Scholar Legal Opinions and Journals (SLOJ) has been largely defined by our experience with extant legal databases. All online legal research tools that we're familiar with at present are databases filled with documents that we search using boolean operators or simple, character-by-character, word-for-word text searching. The main differences between, say, Westlaw and the Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-28654568034436363682009-12-06T16:22:00.003-06:002009-12-09T15:41:32.693-06:00Chat Room Transcript from 4 December 2009 BlogTalkRadio ShowI will be writing later about our conversation with Anurag Acharya, Chief Engineer of Google Scholar. Greg Lambert, Roger Skalbeck, Marcia Dority Baker and I had a wonderful 90-minute conversation with Mr. Acharya, and I think that I speak for us all when I say that the conversation was not only enlightening, but we were all very impressed with Mr. Acharya's charm, his sense of humor and the Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-86019829716448079762009-11-18T10:11:00.002-06:002009-11-18T10:31:21.121-06:00Google Scholar LOJ - Where Did Google Get the Cases?!Uh-oh. It may be nothing at all, but a few searches in Google SLOJ have retrieved cases that have headnote numbers embedded in them. There are no headnotes, of course, nor are there any key numbers, but the headnote numbers themselves are clearly embedded in the text of the cases. What does this mean? Apparently the cases in Google SLOJ were, at some point, in the Westlaw database. To see what I Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-16682198909736640642009-11-17T12:12:00.002-06:002009-11-17T12:19:29.656-06:00Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern usAlways humble. Read Google's explanation of what their new service, Scholar Legal Opinions and Journals (SLOJ), is intended to accomplish, you'll see that they see themselves as giants standing on the shoulders of giants. Fascinating.Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern usRichard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-82844689173125123902009-11-17T10:10:00.006-06:002009-11-17T12:14:20.115-06:00Google Scholar - (Almost) Great Free Legal SearchAmazing. Google has made a giant step toward creating a practical search engine of legal materials. Click on the link above the check it out. Google's new Legal Opinion and Journals (LOJ) is not a Wexis, or VHPPLM killer. It is a game changer in the "free law," community. Here are a few initial comments about it. First, it is still classically a Google product. By this I mean that they spend Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-8215953204800689162009-11-16T16:25:00.005-06:002009-11-17T09:55:53.593-06:00New Concept in Database Search EnginesI have been thinking about this concept for about a year, and I can't get it out of my head. It's time to share it. I hope that Google, CCH or BNA reads it, exploits it and sends me a hefty check.... Why online haven't legal database providers figured out that online databases are a new breed of legal research tool and developed something completely different? To date, all online databases are Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-23903216090097530082009-11-08T13:20:00.008-06:002009-11-10T08:46:28.217-06:00Interview with Carl Malamud; Thoughts on "Free Law," Kerfuffles and Law.GovOn Friday afternoon, 6 November 2009, we interviewed Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.org. A transcript of the chat room can be found here. You can download the interview from The Law Librarian's BlogTalkRadio web page or find it on iTunes.Law.Gov was the focus of the interview, and it seems that much of the hoopla (and kerfuffle) about Law.Gov and the "free law" movement is all misguidedRichard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-49508116064197328072009-10-18T23:01:00.004-05:002009-10-21T09:44:44.987-05:00Exciting Times are Coming: Check out Law.govIt's rare that the buzz in the air is equal to the reality. I think that we're finally approaching a critical mass in activity to bring the movement to preserve, protect and distribute state primary materials to fruition that something may actually come of it. In addition to Carl Malamud's law.gov effort, LIPA, the Chesapeake Project, AALL's Authentication & Preservation of Digital Law Special Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9628542.post-45989240005488056432009-10-09T14:52:00.003-05:002009-10-09T15:24:36.107-05:00Technical Services in Law Libraries: checking and checking in web pages?This is just a random thought. But it has occurred to me that if libraries undertake to be good stewards of born digital public information, that our technical services departments will have to establish standard methods and practices for visiting public websites where the information is released, and download it systematically. Is this much different from checking in serials? I think not...Richard Leiterhttps://plus.google.com/117683358375068767628noreply@blogger.com1